Pacers let Frank Vogel go when he wasn’t to blame

After proving himself as a valuable head coach with the limited Indiana Pacers, Frank Vogel didn’t do anything to ruffle Larry Bird’s feathers enough for him to be let go.

Former Indiana Pacers head coach Frank Vogel was completely justified in trying to convince Larry Bird to renew his coaching contract.

Vogel earned the right to be persistence. He isn’t just some hopeful, fresh-faced guy looking to make a good impression during his first season as a head coach. He only missed the playoffs once since taking over the Pacers (when Paul George was out with injury last season) and he took a limited offensive team with a younger PG13 to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2013-14, going to six games against LeBron James’ Miami Heat thanks to establishing a stifling defensive unit.

And after winning 45 games this season and taking the 56-win Toronto Raptors to seven games in the first round of the playoffs — a team who were dubbed as those with the best chance to knock off the Cleveland Cavaliers — Vogel didn’t do anything different, once again earning praise by establishing himself as one of the top coaches in the NBA.

He won more games in the regular and postseason than he should have and ran a Pacers team that ranked third in defensive efficiency. And he did all that in convincing fashion with a team that was lost the moment George left the floor.

But apparently that wasn’t enough for Larry Bird. Because when your team isn’t quite as good as you want and you feel as though changes need to be made, it’s always easy to blame the coach. In this case, the action taken has resulted in Vogel’s contract not being renewed, letting him free onto the coaching market to undoubtedly receive generous offers from plenty of other organizations.

Although, it’s important to remember that Vogel wasn’t ‘fired.’ Oh no. His contract was simply not renewed.

“Frank is not getting fired. His contract is up. I made the decision not to renew it,” Bird told reporters, per Nate Taylor of the Indy Star.

Same difference, right? Well, that wasn’t the only questionable statement Bird made when addressing the reasoning of letting Vogel leave.

“It’s time for a new voice around here,” Bird said, per Dan Feldman of NBC Sports. “Sometimes my job really sucks, and this is one of the toughest things I’ve done.”

Tough, yet easily avoidable.

The reasoning sounded even more bizarre when ESPN’s Marc Stein reported that Pacers assistants and former assistants are some of the favorites to take over, hardly giving the surely puzzled team in the locker room much of a ‘new voice’ to rally around.

Perhaps the Pacers’ offensive limitations are what ruffled Bird’s feathers. At the start of the season, Bird made it clear that he wanted his team to go with the NBA’s fashionable trend of Golden State Warriors inspired small-ball, shifting George to power forward. As the weeks went by, though and the slender 6-foot-8 superstar didn’t agree with the positional change, the Pacers kept going forward as well as they could. However, despite George Hill’s two-way efforts and the smooth play of impressive rookie center Myles Turner, the Pacers struggled to a 23rd ranking in offensive efficiency.

When you have a starting center like Ian Mahinmi who possesses no real go-to post ability, a bench with only one consistent three-point shooter (C.J. Miles), a struggling guard who failed to be the dangerous scorer he needed to be (Monta Ellis), and a disappointment who continually looks like a shell of himself (Ty Lawson), you aren’t going to score many points.

With such pieces, eventually facing the Raptors with two All-Star guards and the fifth-ranked offense, what more could Vogel have done?

The Pacers have become another team to let a coach go without solid reasoning before his time should be up, apparently hoping to find a “new voice” to transform the team’s performance in ways that aren’t really possible with the current roster.

As Vogel leaves, the Pacers are only enforcing the fact that many teams underrate consistency. Just take the San Antonio Spurs, for example. Sure, they’ve raised the bar above everyone else with a history of great players and the longevity of Tim Duncan, but Gregg Popovich being in place since 1996 has given them a consistent leader to follow, instilling a consistent culture that players can buy into. And even though Vogel is obviously no Popovich (neither is anyone else for that matter), avoiding frequent coaching changes can establish the kind of consistency for a team’s leadership that holds great value in this regard, especially when a team is patient enough to see it pay off.

The Pacers just needed more time and more pieces to become a team that has an offense good enough to compete without solely relying on the efforts of one superstar — they didn’t need to get rid of Vogel’s experience and defensive knowledge in order to turn the tide.

Yet, as is so often the case in the constantly rotating tradition of the NBA, coaches easily take the hit, which now leaves the Pacers lacking greater continuity, tarnishing Larry Bird’s image as president in the process.

This didn’t need to be the case, and Frank Vogel didn’t need to pay the price for the team’s limitations.

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